Well what can I say?!?! It’s the last day of my road trip and what an amazing trip this has turned out to be!! Bear in mind this was not planned, I just went with the flow and the more I rode the more I enjoyed this beautiful country. I will most definitely do another trip down to Melbourne and in to Tasmania some day. With the experience I’ve gained along the way I would even consider riding up north to the Territory. What a great experience that would be!

I left for Brisbane with mixed feelings, part of me wanted to stay back and head to Tassie but my head said it was best to head back and take on a new challenge offered to me in my career by a very sincere team and an even more sincere and honest outgoing applications manager. This is an opportunity for me to make a big difference and I just couldn’t say no.

The weather today was pleasant with a very small chance of rain. I didn’t care anymore about the weather as I had ridden my bike through heavy downfall, in the dark, in the early hours and for long hours and so I got on the bike and left Coffs Harbour. On my way out I took a few photos to remind me of my time here.

From then on it was a ride up to Brisbane via Ballina, Byron Bay, Tween Heads, Gold Coast and then finally back to Brisbane. I was very confident riding at 110 kms/hr on the highway. This is a huge improvement from when I left Brisbane where I didn’t feel very comfortable doing those speeds. This motorcycle is so well balanced, it’s easy to ride!

I did make a couple of stops along the way, one was at New Italy and the other for a quick snack. As usual there were some amazing roads to ride on and just for the memories I thought I’d take a quick photo of my bike setup and gear. I know there are a couple of things to do for the next trip but I’ve got pretty much everything I could possible need.

Once I got home the first thing I did was to take a photo of the number of kilometres I had covered from start to finish and the state of the bike. I had done over 4,840 kilometres over 19 days! The bike is well and truly ready for it’s 8000 kilometre service.

I know the bike is dirty and I’m keen to give it a wash asap. I booked the bike in for a service on the 10th of Feb and will wash it on the weekend so The Chief will be as good as new.

Thank you so much for keeping up with the updates. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my posts as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

Take care and stay safe 🙂

Derek Halstead is a SharePoint consultant as well as the founder and principal of CertifiedSolutionsAustralia.com and CoolWriteups.com. He has 16 years of experience in the IT industry, with over ten years focused on Microsoft SharePoint. He can be reached by using the Contact Me link in the top menu.